February 17, 2005

• i don't get it... so Wal-Mart does this and everyone's all like 'Yeah! Go teh uni0ns!', but when it happens in (ice) hockey it's a bad thing? sorry, kids, a union is a union is a union - as we say here 'Touch one, touch all'. actually, that sounds kinda icky...
• A little context might be useful here. This kind of thing has never happened in sports that I (and most of the civilised world) know, but that's because most of the notable gains were made without strike action many years ago. So, what's the background here?
• Dog beepers unions and actual work unions shouldn't be mentioned in the same breath. Come to think of it, Wal mart, they're a bunch of dog beepers too. Anyway we should all be playing hockey instead of watching it. But then again what would Rome have been without circus maximus? All you plebs need some entertainment.
• This kind of thing has never happened in sports that I (and most of the civilised world) know Remember World Series Cricket?
• Heres some background, from the sharks coincidentially enough. http://www.sharkspage.com/2004_06_01_archive_history.html Hey flsah boy, what about the Baseball strike of the 90's? (in North America)
• Wolof - flashboy did say civilised... Crackpot - er... say what?
• prismatic hit it on the head. Sports owners get away with so much shit because of public gullibility... OK, so your boss says: everyone's salary is cut by half or more for no reason, if you dont like it, we're closing the business. You negotiate for months and agree to a massive pay cut, but not quite what the boss wants. He closes the business. Who's at fault?
• The NHLPA is not a union, in the true sense of the word. Each player individually negotiates a contract with his team (through his agent), so there's no commonality of salaries between union members. The 'collective bargaining agreement' outlines the framework of those contracts, touching on things like rookie maximum salaries, restricted free-agency, and salary arbitration rules. Personally, I'll miss hockey, and I'll continue to be a fan when it comes back. It's in my blood.
• Oh Christ, me west indian buddies love Criket. Only problem is that you need two satilites to catch all the games in Canada, you have to follow the game in the rags mostly. Anyhow the league's(National Hockey league) been losing a lot of money, pats few years, asked players to except cap, and pay cut. Players refused, it went to arbitration, and now the seasons been cancelled.
• Unions, like anything, can be both a good thing and a bad thing. Without organized labor, the average US worker would still be pulling 12 hour days with no vacation time etc... But professional atheletes are, on average, very well paid. I won't lose any sleep if we don't have a hockey season. Now if we were to lose a curling season...
• Remember World Series Cricket? Nope - before I was born, mate. (Also, what prismatic said about the civilised thing.) *still sceptical about that Twenty 20 business*
• I played a game of 20/20 a few weeks ago. Pretty good fun!
• Heathen.
• ;-)
• Yeah, I like a Test match. Proper cricket.
• Man, cancelling an entire season? That's pretty impressive given the commercial losses that would come from that. I think. I know nothing about ice hockey or even if that's the point of this article. I'm going to start posting about obscure sports, like korfball.
• drjimmy, I don't think you can compare the sports world to the business world. The existing CBA was seriously flawed, and allowed average player salaries to increase 240% since 1995. Existing arbitration rules all but force owners to pay the inflated salaries, or lose their best players to unrestricted free-agency. The result is that player salaries now account for 75% of team revenues, with the 30 teams losing a combined $273 million last year. The 24% pay cut offered by the union was laudable, but didn't address the flaws in the system. The salaries would have risen right back up to present levels within a couple of years.
• yay! go on, monkeybashi, post about korfball! ... .. . PSST! What's korfball?
• That better be Test Korfball, Ms. Bashi. I will settle for nothing less.
• The owners appear to want to break the union, a cause for which I have no sympathy, since the team owners are in a bed of their own making. It's a free market system. Teams choose how much to bid for individual players. If the teams choose to offer the players more money than the teams actual take in, it's hardly the players fault. It only serves as an indictment of the team management and their poor business acumen. The major market teams bow to their avarice and stab the small market teams in the back by paying big salaries to take the top talent and push up the pay scale, but then who do the owners hold up as justification for breaking the union? The small market teams. In the end, it's not a truly free market, because the teams need the good players to draw the fans, and the players need the NHL because there's no where else to play. So they have to work together, owners with owners, and players with owners. There must be some sort of cap to control the individual greedy owners, but there must also be a clearly open-ended flexibility to the salary system or that same greed on the part of the owners will quickly start screwing the players. It's at 'together' where it breaks down. The owners can't control their own greed for the good of the whole league, so the union has step up and agree to a salary cap and a 24% salary roll back. In response, the owners insist on an even lower cap and try to institute a revenue tie that would have put them completely in control of any future salaries. I don't think the players are suffering yet at this point, so I don't have sympathy for their current plight, but it's fairly clear whose mess this is. From what I can tell, the players final offer also included a much aggressive taxation scheme for discouraging teams from even approaching the salary cap. Once again, the players show willingness to work to help the league as a whole, while the owners work to have their cake and eat it too. Preferably off the back of a dead union.
• BIG opportunity for Frisbee Golf to take it's rightful place in the sun, if you ask me.
• In the absence of televised NHL hockey, there has been a resurgence in attendance at minor league arenas all over Canada this year. Hockey fans who appreciate the game more than the marketing spectacle are still well, if not better, served. For 10 or 20 bucks you can see highly professional players at your local rink instead of forking out 60 bucks or more for an NHL ticket or sitting on your ass in front of the teevee. I don't feel sorry for the owners or the players. The game will survive. I'm a little concerned about this whole korfball thing though...
• Shinny rules.
• Because of the strike, I got to fly in a first class charter plane, with HUGE seats. They were HUGE! I couldn't believe how much room we had. The only thing that would have made it better would have been if it had been one of my long flights (it was only an hour). I'm not complaining, even if I do lose my Canadian passport because I'm not complaining. :)
• I became a hockey fan late, when Dallas got the Stars. My mom and I (who are both big baseball fans -- my mom's also a big (American) football fan) worked hard to puzzle out the rules and learn the game. I'm terribly disappointed that the season has been cancelled. It's hard to talk about unions when you talk about millionaires, yes, but the owners are far bigger millionaires than the players (I keep thinking back to the Chris Rock routine where he talks about the difference between "rich" and "wealthy." He says there are no wealthy African-Americans, and uses Michael Jordan as his example. Michael Jordan is rich. The guy who owns his team and signs the checks? Wealthy.) Also (as Nal pointed out) the owners are in a crisis of their own making. My friends and I have just started going to college games. We're in a pretty good conference for hockey (the MAC), the games are fun, and they're free! I've also been to a few minor league games which were also great. (I can't afford to see the NHL when they *do* play) They work really hard to play their best, and to make it fun for the fans.
• I think there will be changes to the professional game when they return next year. This is a turning point for the NHL. Teams may be lost. Changes might include a shorter season to highlight games, smaller goalie pad sizes, shootouts! no more tie games and fights get a 2 game suspension instead of a 5 minute penalty. college sports rule...
• Owners: "Oh no, we keep paying the players too much money! If only someone would stop us from signing these checks! If we don't stop, the sport will die!" Kinda like: "Oh no, I keep slamming my dick in the oven! If only someone would make me put my dick away! If I'm not stopped, I could die!" It's the Canadian's fault; the syrup-suckers keep paying in Canadian dollars, and American players don't understand the exchange rate, leading to inflation.
• The owners in big markets can afford to pay the huge salaries. And yes, that's one of the reasons the salaries have risen so much (the other is the messed up arbitration rules that force small-market teams to pay the same high salaries). Those big-market teams don't want a lockout, and they don't want a salary cap. This lockout is all about Phoenix, Atlanta, Florida, Pittsburgh, and all the other struggling teams. Without a new deal they can't operate as viable businesses, and the dozen or so teams that will be left won't be getting fat TV contracts anymore. If the players would understand that, they's take the salary cap and their multi-million dollar paychecks and be happy.
• Nal's got it nailed. js gets bonus banana points for the dick-and-oven analogy. rocket88 gets 5 minutes in the box for completely missing the point (as usual).
• I'll wager I've been following this situation closer than anyone here. Siding with the union just because the owners are wealthier (and therefore automatically more evil) is a simplistic view, but you have every right to adhere to it. The players' offer was a short term solution that would have them signing $10 million contracts again in no time, and they knew it. Their goal was to appear to be offering concessions without actually giving anything up, long term. And it looks like it's been successful. I agree that a minority of free-spending owners created this mess...but they had every right to do so and the smaller teams can't stop them. The league can't control spending on their own. That would be collusion and the union would haul their asses in front of the NLRB if they tried it. A new CBA is the only way to save the small-market teams. If the players want to play the "it's not our fault" card, they're undermining themselves, because teams will fold and there will be fewer jobs to go around and less money to demand a share of.
• A more accurate version of js's comment: Rangers, Maple Leafs & Red Wings owners: "We're rolling in money and want a Stanley Cup. We'll pay you superstars $10 million if you'll be on our team." Player on Phoenix Coyotes: "I want $10 million too, I'll take it to salary arbitration" Arbitrator: "He scored just as many goals last year as the Rangers' guy did. He deserves $10 million. Coyotes Owner: "I can't afford that" Coyotes Player: "If you don't pay you automatically lose my rights and I become a free agent" Coyotes fans: "Pay him! Pay him! He's our best player and we won't buy tickets to see a bunch of stiffs play" Coyotes owner (signing check): "This system sucks"
• Speaking of 20/20 cricket, it seems it's turning into more of a retro fashion spectacle than sport!
• Hamish Marshall was so choooice.
• And you're right. I don't know, nor care, who won.
• Well, if Arizona fans won't go see hockey just to see hockey, maybe they shouldn't have a fucking team? I kept going to see the Red Wings even when they sucked. People in Nashville (NASHVILLE?) keep going to see Predators games, even though they suck. And since, post-Bowman, the Wings haven't been that great, we can pretty much say that having a higher payroll doesn't always mean winning the cup. And if players go free agent all the time, there will be more availible players than slots, and the price will drop. Or maybe Rocket's just worried that with too much free agency, his team'll end up with Lindross...
• I'm terrified of that. Now that I think of it, I should support the players just because that would be best for my team. They're one of the richest teams and the biggest spenders, and a salary cap would only get in their way. But I know that wouldn't be best for the league overall.
• What, are you a Leafs fan? And c'mon, the Rangers have a huge salary, and they came in 13th last year in their conference. Money doesn't guarantee success in hockey. Maybe you've been reading too much of the owner's CBA site...
• Haven't seen the owners' CBA site, but I have seen the text of each side's formal proposals, and I've looked at the Levitt report, and read and heard about ten thousand analyses from ex-players, ex-managers, and unaligned third parties. I don't think the owners are primarily out to break the union, or they never would have taken linkage off the table in the last-minute sessions. If they wanted to break the union they would just stick to their guns, have an impasse declared by the NLRB, and open up next year with replacement players (50% of whom would be existing players, IMO). It would be dead easy. Essentialy this is a dispute between millionaires and billionaires, and there are no good guys. I'm not aligned with the owners, in fact I hate the Leafs' ownership. I just believe that a system that lets salaries increase 240% in nine years is flawed and unsustainable, and, as a fan, I want what's best for hockey.
• Well, Rocket, let's say this: I'm a fan of hockey and I want what's best for the league. So do you. I think it would involve some contraction, and I don't have any real sympathy for either side. I tend to blame the owners for this because I tend to feel that their complaint is largely one of their own making. But most of all, I just want to see some damn hockey. Luckily, our local college teams are pretty damn good (otherwise, I'd have to drive three hours to see some AHL). I guess the only real benefit of this is that the Wings didn't get to embarrass themselves this year, like they were probably going to (at least in the playoffs). I think that what's ultimately going to happen, though, is teams like Atlanta's will rightly vanish, and hopefully they'll cut the number of games (and quit trying to schedule them up against other major league sports. Because much as I'll watch hockey over basketball, I have to admit that most people won't.)
• I think we agree much more than we disagree. This mess *was* entirely created by about a half-dozen out of control owners. It's entirely their fault. They caused it, the other 24 owners suffered from it, and the players benefited from it. Now, how do we fix it? The only way I can see involves the players giving up those gains. It wasn't their fault, but there's no other way. And I'd love to see a 24-team league playing 64-game seasons with some better parity between team skill levels (which would eliminate the need for 'trap' style defence). In the meantime I have AHL & OHL to tide me over. I look forward to trash-talking with you over NHL playoffs someday.
• NHL season may be un-canceled on Saturday.
• So who called whose bluff?